


The Many Names of Rowena Ravenclaw

by justawordwright



Series: Tales of the Founders [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 5+1 Things, Gen, Hogwarts Founders Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 04:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12226101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justawordwright/pseuds/justawordwright
Summary: The life of Rowena Ravenclaw through the names she earned. (Or five names Rowena took during her life and one she didn't.)All about Rowena Ravenclaw, how she lived as a girl named Rhonwen, and how she became the legend of Rowena.





	The Many Names of Rowena Ravenclaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some character stuff on Rowena Ravenclaw and how she lived as a girl named Rhonwen, and how she is perceived as the legendary Rowena Ravenclaw.

A name isn’t a name, isn’t fixed, isn’t a given. A name is a _name,_ is a gift, is a tale. They are given and change, shaped as a person shapes themselves. Know all a person’s names and you them, and their story.

There’s a reason they have power.

Rhonwen knows all this, and thinks what her names would say of her. Who she is, what she has done.

What she has been, and what she shall become.

**xXx**

_Rhonwen Wallt-du._

Rhonwen doesn’t remember being given her first name, knows that she shouldn’t but still it bothers her. Shouldn’t because the name had come with her birth, uttered for the first time as soon-to-be-Rhonwen shrieked her way into the world, the harshness of it tearing at her delicate skin, and thick blood clotting on her face. Her mother had held a freshly swaddled babe and twisted a finger through the short black curls and found a name.

_Rhonwen Wallt-du._

_Rhonwen, the Blessed-Spear. Wallt-du, the Black-haired._

It is a name she grows into, her face getting longer and thinner; her cheekbones sharp and jawline pointed. Bright and cold, curious eyes. A smile as thin and keen as a well-honed blade. She grows her hair out, till it’s long to braid a band all around her head and wears it with pride.

She is proud of her name — the way she is _Wallt-du_ rather than a _ferch,_ marked as just the _daughter of,_ her name tied to her mother’s, like all the other girls in the village, or to her father, like her older brother and two sisters, their identity tied up with his status as Nêr of the Tref. _Wallt-du_ ’s all hers though and she makes a point of it to the girls in the village, whenever she wants to. They don’t play with her much, and she doesn’t mind, she _doesn’t._ But still she has her name, that is hers and hers alone and they can remember that when they curtsey and then run.

That changes when she moves to the Abbey. Not much of a surprise, and she had known that the move was coming, wasn’t strange for people of her position to go to the Church and she had had plenty of preliminary visits but it still feels odd to be nothing more than Novice Rhonwen, clothed in scratchy brown and bundled up till barely any skin, and no hair is free. There are five other girls, like her known as _Novice This_ and _Novice That,_ though the Nuns generally just shout _Novice_ and point in their general direction.

They’re just _Novices,_ and haven’t earned any other name in the eyes of the Nuns.

They talk about it one evening, snuck out of bed after prayers, talking about what their names had been, swapping tales of how they got them and making guesses at each others. Rhiannon, the eldest of them had been _Loyt,_ the _Grey;_ the cousins Morfyl and Wir who look too similar, _Syrthio-yn-y-ffynnon_ and _Colli'r- bwced, Fell-in-the-well_ and _Lost-the-bucket;_ Angharat, _Wyth,_ the _Clumsy;_ Nest, the youngest of them _ferch-Artur,_ the _Daughter-of-Artur._ Rhonwen is the last of them asked, and none of them even close near the mark with their guesses. She doesn’t mind too much, too busy laughing at their ideas, insane as they are — _Helwyr-gath, Gwisg-ffyslyd_ and _Odter-poen. Cat-hunter, Fussy-robes_ and _Porridge-hater._

But when she tells them, their blank faces surprise her for a moment and then she blushes, because how could she be so stupid? How could they have thought _Wallt-du_ when they had never even seen her hair, hidden under their Order’s wimples?

And that is how _Wallt-du_ ends, in the confused faces of five girls. Because what point is a name if no-one can see its meaning?  

**xXx**

_Rhonwen Llofrudd-o-gelwydd_

The first time it happens she is in lessons and a wooden board is in her hands, the Lord’s prayer scratched into the front. It’s a little over a year since she dropped _Wallt-du_ and they’re in class learning their prayers, a stern old Nun at the front, tapping out a beat for them to chant to.

Or they should be, but when Sister Lia calls on Novice Adwen — a new girl barely in the Abbey a month and already rising hackles amongst the girls — for not having a sheet there’s a loaded silence before Adwen replies. “Angharat tripped and fell into me and broke mine.”

There’s more quiet and Rhonwen’s fingers sting as she clutches her board. That’s just _wrong_ and she says it before she can think. Angharat can be clumsy but this reeks of a lie, Rhonwen thinks. Is _certain_ _,_ more certain than she thinks she has ever felt. Not that Sister Lia listens to her, nodding and scolding Angharat instead. They comfort her afterwards, Rhonwen telling Angharat that Adwen is a bully, power hungry and scouting new victims, trying to assert herself in this unfamiliar place. She still sees her friend crying though, eyes and nose red and raw and running, and when Rhonwen finds Adwen’s board discarded and lost in the herb garden, she burns it in the warming-room fire with all the hatred she has for the girl, for what she had done to Angharat, for what she knows Adwen has brought to their home.

No one would believe her if she turned it in, but now Rhonwen knows she was right. Is right. And the hatred becomes a fire, a need for vengeance and vindication.  

Angharat couldn’t have been the first and won’t be the last, Rhonwen can’t help that. But she will make sure she ends it. _Ends it._

With half-truths and guesses and this brilliant, new, life-saving intuition, that’s how she fights back as Adwen continues to lie and bully and bluster. Rhonwen learns to always know, to be able to give alibis, to know _where_ and _with whom_ everyone was as she slowly builds a burgeoning spy-network she’ll later be proud of. A word of warning from a lay-sister that Adwen’s on the prowl or a quiet tip-off of one of her hiding spots for stolen goods to return them before anyone notices can be a lifesaver.

She doesn’t always win though, the Nuns much prefer Adwen’s simpering smiles to Rhonwen’s words and every failure, every punishment Adwen escapes and loads onto one of Rhonwen’s friends burns. She isn’t good enough she thinks, sat scrubbing the tiles and her knuckles raw, she can’t afford to make mistakes but that’s all she does it seems. It is a demon that sits on her shoulder every moment awake, that fear of _not-good-enough, not-skilled-enough, going-to-hurt-people_ and Rhonwen lets it drive her to destruction, working harder, harder, _harder,_ sneaking and eavesdropping and spying until her eyes are dark and twitch and she feels like she is falling.

Eventually though, Adwen goes too far, and even Rhonwen couldn’t have set it up better. Thankfully, her desperation hasn’t driven her that far yet. She tries to forget that she’d been considering it, still.

A relic goes missing, the finger bones of a long dead saint stolen from their reliquary. They’re valuable to the Abbey — bring in a fair fraction of the Abbey’s proceeds through pilgrims and there’d been a long fight to get them there, the saint's’ bones scattered across the country. Sister Ephah, Head of the Novices, lines them up in the hall of the novitiate, the night-cold paving slabs chill against their bare feet. The youngest girls are shivering and Rhonwen fingers the prayer-board habitually tucked up the sleeve of her habit.

Sister Ephah waits little time before admonishing the thief to confess and Adwen opens her mouth and Rhonwen vainly hopes, but of course it is to convict Nest.

Only Rhonwen knows Nest was with Morfyl and Wir, snuck out to pick berries from the hedgerows.

She seizes on it. “Thats a lie,” she calls out confidently, her eyes flashing as Sister Ephah and Adwen turn to look at her. “Adwen did it.”

“Prove it,” Adwen snaps, just slightly too quickly, too defensively and Rhonwen knows she has her, if she can just do as Adwen challenges.

The board is in her sleeve and she rubs her hand over it, eyes squeezed shut and tracing her fingers over the rough-cut letters. Searching for that intuition, that magical knowing of the truth. It’s hiding harder that it usually does, forcing her to tease her way down, feeling, groping for the information. She’s never asked for something like this before though, something more than _truth_ or _lie_ and she can only hope it’ll work.

Something stirs. Her eyes snap open immediately, her mouth is even faster. “She hid in a hollowed tree, out by the redortier,” her brain catches up and she realises she might have gone too far. Adwen could easily claim she was set up. But even then, looking at Sister Ephah, she just _knows_ what to say again, drawing the prayer board out. “Mary won’t let me hear a lie, not when I’m holding this.”

“You — I —" Adwen is too shocked to counter, or isn’t willing to challenge her for blasphemy, the stakes raised too high by Rhonwen’s desperate gamble. Sister Ephah at least seems to believe her, silencing everyone and making a gesture at the door where, Rhonwen supposes, someone must be listening as half-an-hour of waiting later or so, a Nun hurries in, summoning both Adwen and Rhonwen to see the Abbess.

Rhonwen has only ever seen the Abbess in the Chapel leading prayers and occasionally when Nuns have been disciplined, and when she’s ushered in first and by herself she’s surprised to see how young Abbess Ciwa is. Barely a year or two over thirty and with a just softening face, her pink lips playing at a smile, her eyes relaxed and a hand on a heavy leather-bound Bible.

“I’m told you can tell lie from truth,” Abbess Ciwa says, gesturing to two Nuns at the other end of the room, both shifting nervously. Then she passes the Bible to Rhonwen and gives her a moment to admire it, taking in the decorated cover, bejewelled and plated in gold leaf with heavy bronze fittings locking it closed. “Show me.”

Rhonwen obeys the command, listening as the two Nuns tell their tales. Both claim ownership of a small drinking cup that the second holds, just a plain pottery vessel but there is real vehemence in their voices as they fight. Rhonwen listens, her fingers pressed to the Bible and she _knows_.

“The second is lying,” she says and Abbess Ciwa smiles.

“You do have a gift then, _Rhonwen_ _Llofrudd-o-gelwydd,_ ” _Lie-slayer_ , Rhonwen translates in her head, “it is a useful one. You would use it for the Abbey’s benefit?” Rhonwen nods her head as Abbess Ciwa asks. “Then keep the Bible, you’ll need it.”

**xXx**

_Rhonwen Chysgod-y-Brenin_

As knowledge of her gift spreads more people come to use her to settle their quarrels and take court. A couple come from the Church — curious priests, prying Abbots and even a testing Bishop — but most are locals, the lay brothers and sisters, farmers with petty feuds. The Bible that Ciwa gave her wears, the gold leaf flaking and ink smudging under her fingers, as she dictates truth from lie and feels the power of her words, and yet still bears the restrictions of those who’ll come, those who will bind themselves to her judgement. She wonders if she could do more than settle sheep-disputes and family feuds and shortly she gets her answer when a few weeks after her twelfth birthday a messenger comes from the court of Tewdwr ab Elise, Brenin of Brycheiniog. He heads straight to Abbess Ciwa and after a lot of discussion, none of which Ronwen or the other Novices manage to overhear, she’s called to see the two.

She’s shown into Abbess Ciwa’s quarters and takes them in. The messenger is stood in the center of the room, back ramrod straight but an easy smile on his face. Ciwa on the other hand is sat at her desk, fingers drumming grooves into the wood.

“The Brenin wants you to accompany him to meet King Athelstan of England,” Ciwa says. “He thinks your talents may be valuable when he has to swear allegiance to Athelstan. I’ve arranged your usual courtesies, plus some extra, given the length of the journey. You can still refuse though.”

Rhonwen looks between the messenger, proud and eager, and back to Ciwa, whose mouth worries towards a frown, her eyes dark and fingers tapping. Serving the Brenin would be everything she desires, there is no man more powerful in Brycheiniog, and he is only equaled in Wallia by the other Brenin. Though if Tewdwr is to swear allegiance to Athelstan, she thinks, then the King of England must be stronger. Rhonwen doesn’t know much of Athelstan, but she has heard a little of England, this fresh-born Kingdom, forged in Athelstan’s wars and tempered in Danish blood. She is more than a little curious.

“I’ll go.”

Ciwa looks almost disappointed in her decision, ducking her head before Rhonwen can catch more than the merest glance of her twitching eyes. But it’s how at dawn next morning, she finds herself bundled onto a pony, the Bible Ciwa gifted her two years previously in her saddle bag. There’s an older Nun with her to look after her, and the Novices cluster around her, hugging her and forcing promises of stories and gifts from England. Rhonwen laughs, promises and when the messenger spurs his horse on, the Novices chase after them, waving to Rhonwen. She grins and waves back until they stagger to a halt, their breaths heavy and panting and then they disappear into the distance.

It’s not the first time Rhonwen has left the Abbey — though even that was rare, petitioners normally coming to her and she still hoards the freedom — but it is the first time she’s left Brycheiniog. They ride for most of the day, heading out of the hills and up to Y Gaer to join the old Roman road and then south to Brynbuga and Caerleon. Rhonwen ends up trading translations of the Latin inscriptions they occasionally pass for tidbits about the landscape from the messenger, whose name she learns as Llywel.

He tells her tales of the Hen Wraig o'r Dyfnder of Llyn Cwm Llwch, who lures people with music to drown in the lake and will become immortal after nine hundred victims. There is an island there too, in the middle of the lake where the Tylwyth Teg live, unreachable except for on May day every year, when a door opens and anyone brave enough can visit and see the wondrous lands of the spirits, where succulent fruits and flowers like gems grow and your future can be told but nothing except memories may be taken away.

And then there is Syfaddon Llwch which was formed when the earth swallowed up the descendants of a murder as punishments for his misdeeds. His _descendants,_ several generations removed. And the man had been warned of it, that his children of children would die, had been offered a chance to repent but had only laughed, because he had been guaranteed safe himself.

Rhonwen doesn’t like that one, for it is too much like Adwen and innocents taking the punishment for other people’s sins while they flourish and enjoy life. She is rather sorry that they’ve missed May Day and the Tylwyth Teg though, for she wonders what her life could hold and she can never travel for pleasure, just when she is summoned and her Nun escorts will never let her pause for distraction.

It’s past dark by the time they come to Brynbuga, dusk and the conversation with it gone hours ago. Rhonwen is too tired to speak, her mouth parched and body aching. There are saddle-sores all down her seat and legs, the flesh rubbed raw and stinging with every jolt as Llywel, his laughing façade worn away, pushes them on harder and harder until Rhonwen all but collapses when they’re finally allowed to stop. It’s all she can do, to see to her pony before she keels over in bed and is instantly gone.

She is woken stiff and still aching, yawning as she steps into the post-dawn, and understands then why Llywel had ridden them so hard. Tewdwr ab Elise, Brenin of Brycheiniog is _here,_ surrounded by his guard, a dozen men whose hands never stray from the swords and spears at their sides.

Tewdwr is a lean man, a few years older than her father, with salt-and-pepper hair and a frown that never upends itself. He doesn’t speak much either, only to the head of his guard in hushed voices, glancing fearfully about as they ride on again. Rhonwen occasionally catches the name _Hywel_ when she tries to listen in, but Llywel always catches her. He gives her a story each time he catches her but it still smarts, and he’ll never speak of Hywel himself, no matter how hard Rhonwen tries.

They cross into England and travel to Emmet, reaching it two days later, as June turns to July. It’s the largest gathering of houses Rhonwen has ever seen, and on top of that, the township is swamped by the tents in the fields around it. Hundreds of men of men swarm between woolen walls and under woolen roofs, the cloth both plain grey and painted a dozen shades of red and yellow and green. Some are even trimmed in blue and purple, the colours of absolute wealth. Rhonwen is overawed by it.

Her Nunley escort, Sister Cadwyn, hustles her immediately to the little church on the outskirts of the town-proper, where they’ll be staying with the aged priest and Rhonwen sits through their afternoon prayers before she’s allowed to go explore by herself. She leaves her good Bible with Sister Cadwyn, taking her old prayer-board instead, and hurries off as fast as she can, losing herself in the maze of tents.  

It’s a suffocating experience for someone who has spent the last three years in an Abbey, where silence and solitude stifle any memory of just how _lively_ life can be. The men here are _loud,_ shouting to each other in a language she can’t understand, that isn’t the Cymraeg of her childhood or the Latin of the cloisters. They run and barge and knock against her shoulders as they hurry around, so busy and alive that they feel they have no time to waste, to do anything but charge around in between the chores they have — darning clothes and sharpening swords and cooking and chopping wood. Rhonwen doesn’t remember the last time she smelt anything like what rises from the fires and cauldrons — rich and meaty stews and roasts so unlike the porridge and pottage they were served in the refectory. She watches them playing games, dice and tafl and knucklebones and money and food trading hands all the while.

She surrounds herself with it until she’s gasping for quiet but even then doesn’t head back to the Church, shifting from the mess of common tents to more regal ones she’d spotted and scurrying around, peeking at the english lords and their retinues and scampering off before the guards can catch her. By the time she comes to the end of the row of tents she’s out of breath but also laughing again from the chase and she leans against the final tent, catching her breath and clutching the stitch in her side.

It’s only happenstance, she tells herself, that she catches the quiet words that aren’t quite muffled enough from inside. There are three speakers, two men and a woman and she doesn’t understand much, except that there’s at least two languages in play. The English she’d heard in the camp and another she can’t name.

Then there’s the snippets of Latin.

They make no sense, are out of place, single phrases that cannot be part of a conversation.

_‘Veniunt ad me arca meum musicorum,’_ **_come to me, my box of music._ **

_‘In filum retorquere recte volvebatur,’_ **_twist the string to vibrate properly._ **

_‘Et lyra cantare in aere et natant,'_ **_let the lyre swim and sing in the air._ **

She peaks through a gap in the canvas and gasps as she sees a man, tall and with golden hair that’s bright against the dark wine-red of his tunic, sat next to a lyre. There’s a long wooden rod in his hand and as he flicks it, the lyre rises, the strings thrumming and giving off an awful screeching as he, and a woman in the corner laugh. Rhonwen snickers as he continues to try and ‘play’ while singing in an off-kilter tune.

“Enjoying the show?” A voice behind her asks — in Latin — and Rhonwen turns to find another man, slimmer and of a darker, cooler complexion smiling wryly at her. There’s a rod in his hand too, pointed at her chest. Rhonwen instinctively knows it is a threat, though she doesn’t know why. “I thought I sensed someone intruding.”

“Sensed? How?”

He looks at her dryly. The smile edges closer to a sneer. “Of course your _church_ wouldn’t teach you that, even as it exploits those talents. Magic. You absolutely stink of it, to those who know what to look for.”

_Magic._ She couldn’t have been doing _magic_ all this time, she panics. For all her false claim to be guided by Mary, her talent _was_ a heavenly gift, to know when told lies. And it was just that, recognising spoken sin. Wasn’t it? It couldn’t be more, could it?

_But he isn’t lying_.

“I—” she starts but is cut off as the man gestures roughly towards the tent.

“In,” she is ordered and she stumbles inside, the music cutting off abruptly and the lyre clattering to the floor as the man follows behind her and pushes her roughly into a corner. “I caught her _spying,"_ he spits at the man and woman, first in Latin and then switches to the English she doesn’t understand as the three have a heated discussion.

She takes the time to study them better, watching nervously as the golden-haired man’s posture shifts, the looseness in his shoulders and face going, replaced by a powerful efficiency in how he moves, looming and threatening, his eyes and lips hard. His hand clenches and unclenches at his side, as if reaching unconsciously for a sword.

The woman she pays attention to for the first time, is dressed oddly — she has a loose linen dress on but over that she wears a tube of yellow wool, from breast to ankle and a heavy ovular brooch sits at each collarbone, bright glass beads running on a string between the two. Her hair’s loose too, uncovered and long and sandy brown. Not a Christian then, Rhonwen judges, and neither would be the dark-haired man, by the way he talked. She talks the most of the three though, both sternly and animatedly, her eyes bright and fist pummelling into her palm to accentuate her words.

The dark-haired man is all stiff angles, eyeing Rhonwen up suspiciously and is far more economical in his words than the other two, but it’s him that Rhonwen is left fearing the most. Eventually he turns angrily from the other two, shoving the woman’s hand from his shoulder as he steps towards Rhonwen, rod raised towards her face.

“Salazar…” the woman hisses. And then she kicks the golden-haired man in the shin, who coughs and steps forward too.

“You’re here with one of the _Brenin?"_ He asks in Latin, voice wavering uncertainty on the final Cymraeg word. “You can tell us when we ask, or Salazar can read it from your mind.”

She nods, knowing it’s safe to give that up. Any of the right people could tell him, if he cared to go asking. “Tewdwr ab Elise,” she says, her thoughts reeling and fear truly starting to set in. _Mind reader,_ really. He’s not lying either. Will she be able to fight him? She’ll have to. She _has_ too. “And I’m not a spy.”

“Why did he bring you here?”

_To make sure no one cheats him in the treaty,_ she thinks, but keeps her mouth clamped shut. It would be foolish, and dangerous to admit that. Llywel hadn’t said so, but she knows it. Both men and the woman frown.

“What magic do you know? Who taught you? Do you use a wand, or what?” The questions come rapidly and she stays silent, shrinking back against the fabric of the tent until the golden-haired man nods curtly, his eyes narrowed. “You’ve given us no choice then. Salazar?”

The dark-haired man takes another step forward, rolling his shoulders and tilting his head to either side, stretching the cricks out of his neck. He’s still for a moment and then his mouth spits out _"Ireki adimena, ireki arima”_ and his pupils swell, his nut-brown irises swallowed up by the black.

Rhonwen feels it instantly, the pain in her head, like something is boring into her skull. She knuckles at her temples, trying to think how to fight back. How to fight something _within_ her own head though? Her chin cools as she bites into her lip, blood trickling onto her neck.

Memories of Llywel rise up, explanations of what she’s to look for when the Brenin and King Athelstan are hashing out their peace. She tries to squash them, to think of other things, dredging up the stories Llywel told her on their journey. They’re fresh in her mind, and easy enough to pretend that’s what he’s telling her, not what this Salazar wants. She repeats them in her head, over and over again, reminding herself.

The Hen Wraig o'r Dyfnder. The Tylwyth Teg. Syfaddon Llwch.

There’s a flash of surprise, a shadowy form flickering into existence in Rhonwen’s memory.

She doesn’t hesitate, jumping at it, grabbing it’s head in her hands. It’s imaginary but she feels the resistance under her fingers. They tumble on the ground, Rhonwen hissing and writhing as the ground and sky spin around her until she lets go and staggers upright. Her head aches, and there’s wood under her feet and salt in the air. She stumbles across to the side of the ship and takes in all the blue that surrounds her.

The sea. She’s never seen the sea. But she knows that’s what this is, she is on a boat and the sea is all around her, wet and waiting for something to fall in.

“How?” A boy asks from behind her his bare chest shivering. He’s a head shorter than her and Rhonwen can count every rib under his skin. It’s worryingly easy. “Y-You’re not… You can’t be in here.”

Fear. Fear all around her as the waves rise about the ship, chop and harsh, setting the boat shaking until the timbers rip from the side. The boy stands there as Rhonwen falls, watching water gush into her mouth as she flails and screams. It’s cold and she thrashes as she’s pulled under, her lungs aching. Drowning.

She opens her eyes, not realising she’d closed them and gasps as she sees Salazar and the two others. Takes deep breaths as she greedily fills lungs that feel air-starved even when they aren’t. She isn’t sure what just happened, but she’s desperately glad it’s over.

Salazar straightens, shaking hands buried in the folds of his tunic. _"She’s…”_ he hisses, and his eyes flash. “Get out!” he jabs his wand towards her and then at the door, screaming at her to get out until she flees into the falling dusk. Neither of the other two move to stop her, instead closing ranks about their friend warily.

She doesn’t stop when the tent is out of sight either, running all the way back to the Church and crashing onto her bed, ignoring all of Cadwyn’s probing questions. There’s fear in her belly, knowing she’s escaped Salazar only for the night. He and the others will be high in Athelstan’s retinue by their clothes — all of them had silk trims on their dyed robes and bright silver and gold jewellery on their belts and fingers. They’ll be there tomorrow, and Salazar could sense whatever her gift was. _Magic_ was. Would he realise she was using it? What might Athelstan do to her if he realised he couldn’t bluff against Tewdwr? If he realised she could pick away his entire façade of lies?

Would he just force her to leave? Or would he kill her?

He’d kill her wouldn’t he, she’d be too valuable to leave in enemy hands.

She fidgets and shakes for the entire night, sleep hiding from her as her stomach churns and her entire body feels heavy as Sister Cadwyn leads her to the meeting in the morning, seating her by Llywel. The one who started all this. Rhonwen is starting to understand Ciwa’s nerves about this.

The Brenin are sat around a table in front of them, all of them waiting stiffly and silently until Athelstan and his entourage enter. And sure enough, the three from the previous evening are there.

_Jaurerriak Salazar Slica. Ealdorman Godric. Helga of the Fjǫlkunnig._

She doesn’t understand the titles they’re introduced with, but knows they are powerful to be included and to sit at Athelstan’s side. Godric is vocal too, arguing the might of Athelstan’s army as he tries to cowe the Brenin. Rhonwen gathers he and Salazar led Athelstan’s armies in his conquest of the Danes, that Helga was one of their most powerful enemies but has now bent a knee.

Like Athelstan wants Tewdwr to. And the other Brenin. Without fighting once.

Godric boasts but does not lie, not like the Brenin who try to bluff their military power, try to pretend they could withstand Athelstan and survive, even win. Rhonwen whispers the corrected estimates to Llywel and he nods, waiting to inform Tewdwr when he can. It’s not good, Athelstan could crush them all with ease by the numbers, and she’s sure Tewdwr knows that already by the sullenness of his face and how he hunches into his chair. Llywel murmurs in her ear a tale of the last invasion of Brycheiniog by Athelstan’s aunt Aethelflaed when Rhonwen asks. Brycheiniog had been occupied and Tewdwr’s own mother captured and killed.

Tewdwr does not want submit to Athelstan. None of the Brenin do.

Except Hywel. _Hywel, Brenin_ _of Deheubarth._

He’s a short man, with a carefully trimmed beard and thin white hair worn traditionally down to his ears. Old, with wrinkles carved into his face and a hard voice that cuts off any argument against Athelstan, that murmurs in agreement whenever Athelstan talks of _protection,_ of _partnership_ and _providence._ Hywel and Athelstan build an image of great kingdoms, united in faith and law, trade flowing freely between them and a joint army conquering new territories.

“And old ones,” Hywel boasts. “This entire land was ours, before the Romans and the Gaels and the Scots came. Athelstan would give some of that back — Strathclyde and Alba — if we accept his overlordship. Is it too much of a price to pay? We are not strong enough to fight him, and he is willing to help us! How much more can we gain from working with him than resisting him?”

That has some of the other Brenin nodding, and the day’s arguments are concluded with only Tewdwr looking torn. They’ve made up their minds, the details to be finalised over the coming week. Rhonwen watches as Hywel marches out, a triumphant grin at his mouth and slips out of her seat.

She waits till he is alone, following him to his tent and stepping in behind him. Salazar’s spell ready on her lips.

Because if she had never been on a ship, then that memory must have been of Salazar. And if she’d been in Salazar’s mind, then maybe she can read _Hywel’s_ mind too. Can see why he is so desperate to shackle the Brenin to a man whose kingdom has been pillaging theirs for generations, a kingdom which has already eaten up one other. Athelstan may offer protection now, but England only rests until its hunger rises again, and it will be sated. Sated on the Cymraeg.

Hywel is a traitor to the _Cymry_ _,_ will see them all dead by Saxon hand and she wants to know _why._

Her hand is raised, the words strange on her tongue.

_"Ireki adimena, ireki arima!”_

Blood rushes to her head and she feels _sucked_ out of her skull. Images flash before her eyes: a young Hywel stood behind his father’s throne, his uncles before them and all stronger and prouder of the crowns atop their heads; arguments with his own brother, half a broken crown in each of their grasps, until his brother withered and fell and Hywel’s own crown became whole; Hywel laughing; Hywel sat on a throne, the other Brenin arrayed at his feet, faces white and blood pooling against the stones, their crowns in his lap.

Hywel who will rule all if he has his way.

She gasps as the images end, staggering with dizziness as her eyes see Hywel-in-front of her rather than Hywel-in-his-head. She isn’t able to dodge the hand that grasps her by the collar, pulling her in close, so that she can smell the beer in his breath and see how the deep folds in his face are scars and not wrinkles from age.

“Well, you’re an interesting little bird, aren’t you?” Hywel leers, his eyes bright. “Mhm, someone like you would be very useful in my court. Why, you could tell me what everyone about me was _really_ thinking, that would be invaluable wouldn’t it? To be able to tell the faithful from the pretenders, spot the ambitious, the climbers and the dangerous. Yes, maybe I’ll have you for my court, to be my little shadow, my _Chysgod-y- Brenin,_ to follow me and protect me and tell me everyone’s secrets.

“Unfortunately not today though, Athelstan wouldn’t allow that, not when he’s so close to tying our lands up under him peacefully. So flitter away, _Rhonwen Chysgod-y-Brenin_ until I can claim you and bend you truly to that name.”

The words shake her to her core, the terror sitting and curdling in her belly long after she is gone from Emmett, long since Hywel’s fingers are gone from her chin.

Years she is left free, but the fear never dulls, is never dampened by the hope that maybe Hywel has forgotten, maybe Athelstan will be able to stop him coming, stop him stealing her from her home in the Abbey. She dives into the Abbey’s library, grasping at the books, looking for something, anything that can help her, can unlock some new magic gift and it does _nothing,_ she can’t split boulders or cleave the ground with a word and six years of trying is just a waste, no even less than that as the frustration only stokes the fear and by the time she gives up, thinks she must just run away, it is too late.

Hywel is here, and Brycheniog has fallen.  
  
Hywel is here, and there is no one to protect her.

**Author's Note:**

> So here's where things went terrible for Rowena. They will get better in the second half. Sort of.
> 
> If you want to know more about Hywel, Tewdwr and Athelstan, these were the actual rulers of Deheubarth, Brycheniog and England so you can look them up (though there will be minor spoilers), as with the folktales Llywel tells Rhonwen. The meeting described above also did happen circa. 927. And Hywel... Hywel was actually one of the greatest Kings of Wales and not the villain he's portrayed as here, so I feel kinda bad for that.
> 
> (Also, Rhonwen's crazy lie spotting powers are actually stolen wholesale from Gerald of Wales' 'Journey through Wales' book, written in 1192, where a man possessed by demons could tell if someone was lying while holding a bible.)


End file.
